Circadian rhythms

Analysis and Comment (9)

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Good news for those who like a weekend sleep-in: lost sleep can be recovered. Image from shutterstock.com

Explainer: can you pay off your ‘sleep debt’?

By Leon Lack, Flinders University and Siobhan Banks, University of South Australia

Ever have those moments on weekends or public holidays when you wake at your usual time, then realise there’s no pressing need to get up? If you go back for another couple of hours of shut-eye and use…
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If any difference exists at all, it’s imperceptibly small, at less than 0.2°C. Ms Cafe

Monday’s medical myth: men are hotter than women

By Merlin Thomas, Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute

Holding a body close to you, it’s easy to appreciate the warmth a human body can generate. Humans are “warm-blooded” animals. We’re able to effectively maintain a stable internal temperature, even on…
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Drinking alcohol is a pretty bad sleep aid and may become part of a cycle of decline. kjmatthews

Nightmare nightcap: how drinking affects your sleep quality

By James Heathers

Sleeping is normally when our body sticks itself back together. Your breathing and your heart rate slow down, and gradually your body repairs itself, undoing all the damage you’ve done to yourself during…
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Human sleeping patterns could be about more than light and dark. Kristof Borkowski

Sleeping with the fishes: Somalian cavefish shed light on our body clocks

By Greg Murray, Swinburne University of Technology

Eyeless fish that have evolved underground, completely isolated from the day-night cycle, may offer clues to how our body clocks work up here on dry land. Authors of a report published today in the online…
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Unconscious ups and downs are normal – and pretending otherwise is unhelpful. sharmili r

Broken sleep? It’s a rollercoaster ride

By Leon Lack, Flinders University

Most people believe normal, healthy sleep should be long and uninterrupted from start to finish. Well, guess what? They’re wrong. This erroneous public perception of sleep was apparent in survey studies…
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Wake up, it’s a beautiful … oh, shut up, let me be. mislav m/Flickr

Forget Bob Geldof: this is why you don’t like Mondays

By Leon Lack, Flinders University

Feeling sluggish? Grouchy even? Difficulties getting out of bed? Mondayitis can happen to the best of us. But rest assured: it’s a phenomenon science can actually explain. In fact, there are a range of…
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Late nights and jet-lag see us fighting our body clocks, but can we ever win? fmgbain/Flickr

Keeping time: how our circadian rhythms drive us

By Sally Ferguson

Do we control our body clocks or do those clocks, ticking imperceptibly, control us? It’s the kind of question that keeps sleep scientists awake at night. Rhythms are a good place to start. They are a…

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